


Defacing Classrooms with Evangeline Pendragon

by pumpkingsandqueens



Series: Defacing Classrooms AU [1]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27306610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkingsandqueens/pseuds/pumpkingsandqueens
Summary: “Moody adult-child,” huffed Tedros.“That’s not even a proper insult, you imbecile.”In all her years of teaching (which at this point, wasn’t much. Three or four years at most) Agatha had never met a student as, well, lacking in brain cells and common sense when it came to English as a certain child within her class. Granted, the child was still a year seven, naive to the complete horrors of secondary school (and that dreadfully useless thing called maths that kept Agatha awake in her teenage years until three in the morning). But when it came to parents evening towards the end of the autumn term, Agatha Woods was genuinely wondering how said child had passed her SATS and managed to read on a daily basis.or in which i wrote a modern setting sge au but teachers
Relationships: Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil), Anadil/Hester (The School for Good and Evil), Nicola/Sophie (The School for Good and Evil)
Series: Defacing Classrooms AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993672
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	Defacing Classrooms with Evangeline Pendragon

In all her years of teaching (which at this point, wasn’t much. Three or four years at most) Agatha had never met a student as, well, lacking in brain cells and common sense when it came to English as a certain child within her class. Granted, the child was still a year seven, naive to the complete horrors of secondary school (and that dreadfully useless thing called maths that kept Agatha awake in her teenage years until three in the morning). But when it came to parents evening towards the end of the autumn term, Agatha Woods was genuinely wondering how said child had passed her SATS and managed to read on a daily basis. 

She knew English was a hit and miss subject, you either enjoyed it and found it to be your solace or you despised it. But how could a child be so… so stupid and not recognise something so easy as a noun or a verb? Had she been taught nothing in primary school? Even worse, had she not went to primary school? (Agatha knew the last one wasn’t true. The government had rules against that. But with the ludicrous answers she got from the child, she wouldn’t be surprised).

There’s always this stupid rumour that teachers don’t hate their students. Agatha has no idea who started this rumour but they’re wrong. She could list out students she hated. In fact, she had a list. A couple of year eights on there (it was typically the year that pissed her off the most. After one year of being in secondary school they thought they were so big) mixed with year twelves (some of them needed to understand using long words doesn’t hide the fact you can’t write for shit) and the majority were year tens (they thought they were so special being in KS4 now that it was honestly jarring).

Now Agatha didn’t exactly hate being a teacher, there were a lot of things she liked about it. Her fellow faculty weren’t that bad (Anadil did tend to scare the children but she was a delight to be around and Dot the food tech teacher made the best chocolate) and the pay was good (well, as good as it could be for a teacher’s salary) and she genuinely wanted to teach the subject. She didn’t hate children (much) and didn’t always hate marking work. But there were still thing she hated about being a teacher, and one of the main things was definitely parents evenings.

You see, Agatha wishes at those times she worked as a nursery teacher (but toddlers weren’t her favourite so that wouldn’t have worked at all) because secondary schools parents evenings were like hell. No, they weren’t like hell. They were hell. Imagine so many people in one room that it felt like a sauna, imagine having to put in the nicest way possible to parents that their child is failing. Imagine having parents argue and defend their devious children to death because they’d ‘never hurt a soul’. Being a form tutor was worse because sometimes she had to see students twice. And it was never better the second time. Never. She loved teaching, really, but parents evening was the worst. It was around three to five hours of pure torture. She’d rather listen to her sister Sophie talk about the difference between silk and satin that go through parents evening. Kids thought it was bad? It’s worse for teachers, trust her.

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Evangeline Pendragon was probably her worst student. Agatha had no idea what she was like in other subjects but in English, she didn’t even hit ‘working below expectations’. To be honest, the eleven-year-old didn’t like the subject either, which just made it worse. She was quite tall for an eleven-year-old (and Agatha had to keep a boy behind for teasing her about it. Last time she’ll defend the bloody she-devil known as Evangeline Pendragon) and had curly blonde hair and tan skin with blue eyes. Agatha had been told by Ms Anemone (an art teacher) that she was a saint, an angel and any other positive attribute you could think off. Agatha’s idea of Evangeline was the complete opposite of that.

She didn’t concentrate in lessons, whispered to her friends, had been caught swearing too many times and had even had the nerve to rip up Agatha’s own copy of ‘A Christmas Carol’ in front of her, defacing it too. Yet the girl hadn’t been expelled or even suspended. It came to the point Agatha wondered if she should resign. And she was barely a year in with teaching her.

Parents evening came and Agatha had no idea what to do. Of course, she knew how it worked, but she was not looking forward to speaking to Evangeline Pendgragon’s parens (or parent). At all. (Ok, well there was a positive to it all. At least Agatha could talk shit about her student in a faux-polite voice).

“I’m dreading this,” she groaned, adjusting her black and white polka-dotted v neck long-sleeved shirt she wore. The fabric was itchy, and she didn’t understand why there was a piece of fabric hanging from her neck at all and the skirt she wore clung to her body only accentuating how freakishly skinny she was. It wasn’t as if she didn’t try to make herself look nicer (ok, that’s a lie. She really didn’t) but Sophie had forced her into this and she wasn’t about to argue with Sophie once more this week. She’d tried that at the start of the week on Monday and had to call in sick for an earache because she genuinely couldn’t hear anything without some sort of high ringing that hurt her head. (She had a bonus of finding out the next day that Evangeline had also decided to deface her display of poems from her first year teaching in Gavaldon Preparatory School).

“Aren’t we all,” sighed Anadil, her face looking bored as they walked to their respective seats, “all these bloody year eleven parents yesterday were trying to kill me with all the same questions,” she sighed before her voice pitched up and mimicked them, “‘Oh how can my daughter improve in biology?’ ‘I was wondering if it’s acceptable for you to tutor my son?’ No, you twit, I don’t want to tutor your son. And it’s against the fucking rules of the school.” 

“Isn’t Hester coming with Annaliese?” asked Agatha, looking to her co-worker with a curious sort of glance.

“Anna insists she doesn’t want people to know I’m her mum,” Anadil snorted, “but I think everybody in the school knows. What about you? Are you looking forward to year seven parents evening?”

“I’d rather go back into secondary school and relive my trauma of maths than be here,” grumbled Agatha, “Guess who booked a slot with me?”

“Evangeline’s parents?” Anadil spoke.

“Spot on, woo!” Agatha huffed in a sarcastic tone, checking her watch before her eyes widened, “I have my first appointment in two minutes.”

“Good luck with that,” Anadil spoke, “mine’s in ten.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“Agatha I thought you knew better than to swear, there are young children around here.”

“Oh shut up, Anadil.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


She had two more people to go. Two more people to go until she could finally be free of the stupid parents evening and she could go back home, drink that cheap bottle of wine she had bought from Lidl yesterday and never wake up. Thank god tomorrow was a Saturday, she didn’t feel like putting on her ‘I’m sick’ voice to Clarissa Dovey (or Dovey as they all called her). She sighed, tapping her red pen against the table as she ticked off yet another name. None of her classes was exactly bright but at least they weren’t all like one of her students. Two more students, she reminded herself as she opened her planner and jotted a few notes, things about reminding herself to mark one of her year eleven’s essays and buying more highlighters. She mumbled to herself for a few moments, highlighting and crossing a few things out before she grabbed a post-it note and wrote on it in capital letters ‘TRAINING DAY, MONDAY’ and then proceeded to underline it.

“Hello, Miss Woods!” called a fake chipper voice Agatha knew all too well. She repressed a scowl as she stared up, closing her planner with a loud snap. 

She put her best fake smile on and looked and spoke, “Evangeline!” she stood up, not getting a glance just yet of what the father looked like before she stood up from her chair and placed her hand in front of her, looking up as she said, “and you must be Mr Pendragon?”

It was unfair how attractive he looked. He had tan skin with no blemishes, golden blonde hair and eyes just like his daughters. Evangeline was the spitting image of him. He was slightly taller than her (and given that Agatha hadn’t grown since her teen years, she suspected he used to be shorter than her as she used to be a very tall teen). But he wore no smile and looked guarded as if he suspected Agatha to bow at his feet. Instant negative points.

“Tedros is fine,” he spoke as she sat back down, with Tedros sitting on the other side with his daughter in the crisp white uniform and tartan navy blue skirt with a similar tie.

“Of course,” she nodded, flicking through until she got to her section about Evangeline and took a deep breath.

Oh boy, she was glad the school never reviewed what she wrote. Better yet, she was glad that she didn’t have to upload this to the school. In the messiest and most illegible handwriting she could muster, she had written ‘she-devil’ and ‘horrible’ next to behaviour and a lot of other questionable things in the academic achievement section for English. Guess it was time to bullshit her way through this.

“Evangeline is… a good student,” she spoke stiffly, smiling fakely still as she stared at his daughter, refusing to look Tedros in the eye, “But her behaviour needs improvement. As does her English in general.”

She should have worded that better. She really should have worded that better. How dumb was she? How could she call herself an English teacher when she just said that?

“What do you mean?” Tedros asked.

“Do you want me to talk about her behaviour or her work in lessons first?” Agatha continued, ignoring Tedros’ surprised tone.

“Uh… Behaviour, I guess,” spoke Tedros and Agatha broke her own rule and looked to Tedros, who was looking at Evangeline who seemed to be giving her biggest smile to Agatha, her eyes screaming the message ‘I will deface your whole classroom’ like usual.

“Right,” she nodded before looking to the file again, cringing at her harsh words as she spoke, “I assume you have knowledge that your daughter has defaced my classroom several times. Along with ripping up a copy of my book, not owned by the school-”

“Excuse-”

“I’m not finished Mr Pendragon, it would be polite of you to let me finish,” she gritted out, not even looking up from her file, before she continued, “And has disrupted my class too many times to keep track. I’ve brought this up with the headteacher Ms Dovey several times, yet no action has been placed. If this were any other student, by now they would be in a behavioural management program or be suspended at least. That’s not to mention the countless amount of detentions they’d have.”

She may have been a bit harsh, she’ll admit.

She looked up, closing the file before continuing, “Evangeline, why don’t you go wait at your next appointment?”

“Of course!”

“Now,” Agatha spoke, glaring at Tedros,” this makes me wonder why. I’ve brought it up with Ms Dovey several times and she has said she’s brought it up to the school board before. I wonder, Mr Pendragon if you have perhaps been bribing the school board to keep your child here? Gavaldon Prepatory is a respected school, sir, and I would hate for it to lose its respect.”

Ok, now she was just being a bitch (at least she was self-aware).

She tightened her smile as she saw Tedros’ mouth drop as she continued, “as for her work in lessons, it’s severely lacking. She barely concentrates in class and can’t even define the simplest terms such as a noun. I’d suggest getting her a tutor.”

“Is that all?” snapped Tedros, looking aggravated at the fact Agatha was so calm (when really, inside, she was panicking badly).

“Yes,” she nodded, “lovely meeting you, Mr Pendragon. And Evangeline, I’ll see you bright and early for period one on Monday.”

“I wouldn’t say the same about meeting you,” Tedros spoke coldly before he said to his daughter who’d he’d signalled over, “come on Eva.”

And that was all. Except now, Agatha had a target drawn on her back (figuratively) and probably would until pigs could fly (which according to her biology expert, fellow staff member and friend Anadil, would never happen).

  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

Evangeline did not improve in year eight. And at this point, Agatha wondered if Dovey had given her Evangeline’s form for the second time in a row out of pure spite. She sat in the teacher’s lounge, munching on some chocolate fudge Dot had brought for them as she marked a few essays she still had to do. She sighed, pushing back her uneven black bangs, pushing a few strands of her hair behind her ear. She checked her laptop, scrolling through her emails before she let out an audible groan.

“Oh no,” Anadil mumbled in a monotone voice with a hint of sarcasm, “it seems Agatha has gotten an email. I wonder who it could-”

“That stupid prick of a father!” screeched Agatha, sure that probably half the school heard her, slamming her laptop in front of Anadil with so much force that she was surprised she didn’t break it, “look!”

“I see an email,” narrated Anadil.

“DOT!” screeched Agatha, not in a great mood at all, “We need more fudge!”

“Coming lovelies!” shouted back Dot, bounding towards the two of them with a tub of chocolate fudge. Agatha quickly grabbed two and shoved them in her mouth, chewing furiously as she pointed to the email.

“It’s from some bloke named Tedros,” Anadil pointed out.

“Wait Tedros?” called Dot, “You mean the fam-”

“Fucker who’s daughter is a demon straight from hell? Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh. but-Yes! Apparently, according to this god awful email, I’m a ‘boring’ and ‘strict’ teacher! That is not true! None of my other classes says that! I’m not even scary. And look- the bastard said he thinks I need to get better at makeup-!”

“Well your lipstick is a bit smudged,” reasoned Dot before she gulped, noticing the withering glare on Agatha’s face as she quickly rushed and added,” but that is a petty insult!”

“That’s not even the worst!” Seethed Agatha in a furious tone, “He’s speaking to his father about me! And guess what… his dad is on the school board!”

“Pendragon? Oh Arthur Pendragon then, right?” Dot spoke thoughtfully, “I remember seeing his name on the school board… and the newsletter-”

“You read that?” Anadil commented.

“-Yes I do Anadil, and anyways- He was on there because of… what was it? I think he gave a donation to the scho-”

“I KNEW IT!” yelled Agatha, probably sending shockwaves around the school, “I knew it! That’s why that she-demon is still in my class! Now his stupid blonde hair and gorgeous blue eyes are going to get me fired!”

“Gorgeous?”

“MORE FUDGE!”

“Agatha what did you mean by-”

“I SAID MORE FUDGE!”

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Year seven parents evening this year had been on a Monday this year. Which meant year eight parents evening was naturally going to be on the next day. Tuesday. Which meant Agatha could say goodbye to those hopes of getting drunk on cheap wine like last year (it was a blast. Apparently she’d face-timed Hester and told her they should go to Legoland together. Side note, they did and it was bloody amazing). This year, she had to actually stay sober for the whole night. Challenge not accepted but grudgingly taken.

Hester had come early and was seated next to Anadil (her wife) in the partially empty hall with Agatha, with the only other people in there being three caretakers and five other teachers getting set up. 

Hester was adorned in a black top and black jeans, looking semi-professional if you looked from the neck below. But from the neck above, it was another story. She had red streaks in her hair (bright red. Almost like blood) and on the side of her neck was a red demon tattoo (Agatha remembered when the four of them, Dot, Anadil and Hester had gotten drunk and went to a tattoo shop. Whilst Hester got the demon tattoo, Agatha had the words ‘bite your thumb’ tattooed to her pointer finger). She smirked at her wife, the two of them chatting amongst themselves as Agatha walked over.

“You’re early,” Agatha noted, looking to Hester, “Where’s Annaliese?”

“In the dinner hall apparently,” Hester spoke, showing her a string of text messages she’d had with her daughter, “with her friends. Apparently, Eva is highly competitive when it comes to UNO.”

“Eva? as in EVANGELINE?” Agatha repeated, “as in the one who keeps defacing my classroom?”

“I told you this would happen,” Anadil spoke.

“Well whoop-dee-do you won, what was it you wanted again?” Hester asked, looking to Anadil.

“Maybe some respect from my wife for starters,” Anadil noted before adding, “and you do the washing for two weeks.”

“Is that all?”

“What? Should I ask you to grovel at my feet like those boys on those cringe and old teen drams?”

“No, do you consider me to stoop that low?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course.”

“-WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOUR DAUGHTER IS ASSOCIATING WITH HER?!!” Agatha shouted, her voice ringing through the large hall.

“It’s not like you ever asked,” shrugged Hester, “and anyway, if you think that’s bad. Think about the fact that they both have Hort as a history teacher.”

“What has that got to do with Annaliese and Evangeline being friends?”

Hester shrugged, “nothing, I just never liked the weasel.”

“Think about how I feel!” argued Agatha, “He’s dating my sister!”

“We truly feel sorry for you, Agatha,” Anadil spoke solemnly, “Such weasel is a curse on your family and weakens your strong family genes. God, imagine if they did have kids-”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Agatha spoke, “I don’t know what Sophie saw in him.”

“On the bright side,” dot’s voice suddenly spoke from behind Agatha, handing each of them a chocolate muffin, “At least he’s better than the rest of Sophie’s boyfriends. Remember Rafal... Or Rhian, or-?”

“Anyone is better than the two of them,” grumbled Agatha, the young English teacher, huffing as she straightened her black turtle neck and pulled on her white skirt, looking almost blinding compared to the rest of her clothes, “Rafal was some stupid rich boy and Rhian thought he was some hot-shot because he played for the county. And don’t even get me started on that prick Japeth, I’ll be here for years.”

“I think we all hated Japeth,” noted Dot, “but he was attractive.”

The three other woman shot looks at Dot, who quickly responded with a meek, “don’t kill me yet! I’m too young to die!”

“And what a shame I’m actually friends with you,” sighed Hester.

“Well,” sighed Agatha finally, seeing more teachers walk in and a few students, “guess I’ve got to go now. See you lot later.”

“I’m off to find Anna,” huffed Hester, “she hasn’t responded to my message.”

Agatha smiled. Hester and Anadil had been together since… well, Agatha wasn’t exactly sure the date, but they had been together for a long time. Going back to their teen years, so that was around a long time, probably more. And had gotten married on the whim at twenty-one, soon adopting the now twelve-year-old Annaliese who often referred to Agatha outside of school as ‘Aunt Agatha’ or just ‘Auntie Aggs’. But as much as Hester protested she hated children, she was protective of Annaliese, and would promptly cut anybody who even hurt her (which translated to the fact Hester and Anadil loved Annaliese to death).

Agatha sighed, sitting in the same seat she had last year, not even bothering to check her list of students and their parents she’d be talking to.

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Three students in and Agatha was ready to throw herself in front of a moving car. The twenty-eight-year-old English teacher sat there, nodding as the father spoke all about how his daughter adored her (the usual tactic parents used trying to butter up their teachers hoping their child would get a better mark. it might work with some teachers but Agatha didn’t fall for it one bit). After the father and his daughter had left, Agatha sat back, only to be disrupted the second she blinked.

“Hi Ms Woods!” the same gremlin voice spoke.

“Evangeline,” Agatha spoke with a tight smile, not even bothering to stand up as she frowned in the direction of Tedros, “Mr Pendragon.”

“Call me Tedros,” he said in the same manner, the two of them sliding into their seats.

“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” Agatha spoke quickly, flipping through her folder until she got to Evangeline’s page, “ah yes! Evangeline Pendragon. Your daughter’s behaviour is still not to an acceptable standard. Similar to last year disrupts classes, rips up worksheets, has defaced the touch screen board in my classroom. And has several outstanding pieces of homework and has racked up around twenty detention from me-”

“Now wait just-”

“- moving swiftly onwards, her classwork is still lacking. As I suggested last year, she would do well to have a tutor. I have referred a few year thirteens, but it seems Evangeline has managed to skip every single session I’ve planned for her at lunch-”

“Well my daughter needs to eat lunch,” Tedros fired back.

“Well your daughter also needs to pass her GCSE’s, Mr Pendragon,” Agatha quipped back, “regardless if she takes A-Level English or not, English is a core basis in any working field.”

“Is that all?” huffed Tedros looking at his watch, “we have around twelve minutes left.”

“Then you should like to see yourself out,” Agatha spoke, “perhaps arrive early to your next meeting with another teacher. I believe Ms Cruor-Brooke is her science teacher? I suppose you have booked a meeting with her?”

Tedros stayed quiet for a few moments, and Agatha smiled to herself, would they finally go? But instead, Tedros stood up, and said, “Eva, why don’t you go wait for your science teacher, I just want a few words with your English teacher.”

“Of course, dad,” Evangeline spoke, looking to her dad almost warily before shooting a smile at Agatha (which Agatha was sure was real, but she had no idea).

Agatha let out a huff before she turned to Tedros, looking at him with a raised brow as she spoke, “yes, Mr Pendragon?”

“It’s Tedros,” he repeated stiffly.

There was silence for a moment, and Agatha stared at him intently, not backing down. She glared at him and he glared back, a staring match between the both of them. Agatha wasn’t backing down, like hell she would. This was probably just some ninny rich boy who’s father was on the school board, what did she have to fear about him? All of the school board loved Agatha, she’d held meetings with them before. And like hell would Dovey even think about kicking out Agatha when she was the one who raised their seemingly perfect grades more within the school. She was the reason her class got nine’s in GCSE, and there was no way she was going to cower in fear of some idiot of what she assumed was a single father.

“I assume you received my emails,” he spoke to her.

“Of course,” she responded in a stiff polite voice, “I congratulate your father for being on the school board.”

“Yes, he pays funds towards this school too,” Tedros nodded, glaring at Agatha.

“Are you trying to threaten me, Mr Pendragon?” she asked an eerie calm voice.

“Yes, I am,” Tedros spoke.

“Well, good luck with that,” she spoke, “because it is not my fault your daughter acts the way she does. If anything, I fear it’s because of treatment at home. I try to be calm with her in lessons, I try to give her second chances and she does things. Do you know why children do things for attention? Because their parents ignore them, Mr Pendragon. I suggest you get a tutor for your daughter, and I suggest you spend time with her. Beyond the fact I dislike the way your daughter acts in lessons, I’ve heard great things from other teachers who teach her. She sounds like a good person but clearly doesn’t act that way in lessons. Maybe if you tried harder she’d act better.”

Tedros looked like he’d just been punched in the face. He stared at Agatha in shock as she sat back in her seat, simply saying, “I assume you’re a single father, yes?”

“Yes, well my work-”

“Should not stop you from spending time with your daughter,” interrupted Agatha, before she stood up and held out her hand, “good day, Mr Pendragon, have a lovely parents evening.”

He brushed away her hand, bumping into her as he mumbled, “not bloody likely.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Summer holidays were the main reason Agatha actually liked being a teacher (she’s joking, of course, there are other reasons). It’s pure bliss, going somewhere or just being able to have a lot of holidays. She can do whatever she wants, and doesn’t necessarily have to plan all her lessons every day. Pure bliss. So when her sister, Sophie, says she’s inviting her to this getaway in Cornwall with a few of her friends, Agatha’s immediate answer is, “no.”

“Oh come on Aggie!” Pestered Sophie, the two of them walking through a stationary shop Agatha always bought her whiteboard pens from, “You can invite Anadil, Hester and Dot!”

“Who else is going?” Agatha questioned, starring at Sophie suspiciously, she hadn’t screamed or pleaded pathetically yet, this was a sure sign there was somebody Agatha didn’t like was going on the trip with them.

“Hort and a friend from work,” shrugged Sophie.

“Sophie, expand on that,” snapped Agatha in a grouchy manner, “You work with different colleagues every day. You’re a fashion designer Sophie, I thought you got thi-”

“Pish-posh Aggie! It doesn’t matter who I bring! It’s just a little trip to Cornwall, we’re renting out this lovely shared home thing there, and the whole week will be packed with fun activities!”

Agatha didn’t trust her at all.

“Please Aggie? Will you come?” begged Sophie, “there’s fudge. Cornwall is famous for its fudge.”

“Alright,” she grumbled, “but I’m not going to-”

“OH THANK YOU SO MUCH AGGIE DARLING-”

“SHUT UP!”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Agatha should have never agreed. Because for the following few days before said trip to Cornwall, she was bombarded by Sophie calling her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sister, no. But did she really need to call her to tell her about the clothes she needed to bring? Agatha had common sense and was sure she could apply it to her given situation, she wasn’t dumb.

By the time they had to leave, she was driving to Sophie’s apartment complex with her car to pick her up. All of the group (some she still didn’t know yet) were going to meet at the holiday home. Agatha had packed a large suitcase for herself, packed so that there was still room to fit some things from Cornwall into her bag. That, and she had a car. After waiting for a few moments, she heard a loud scream and saw three violently pink suitcases carried by Hort (a history teacher at the school Agatha worked at that was coincidentally dating Sophie) followed by a mass of blonde curls yelling, “Aggie!”

Agatha sighed, stepping out of the car as she huffed and grabbed the suitcases, helping Hort squeezes them in the boot of her car, mumbling, “weasel.”

“Shove off,” grumbled Hort, “do you know how heavy these are?”

“You’re the one dating her,” snapped Agatha.

“Chop chop!” yelled Sophie.

From London to Cornwall, the drive was around five hours. Which meant five hours of hearing Sophie’s overly happy voice for eight in the morning and Hort grumble about how horrible hs GCSE students were (Agatha couldn’t blame him. She taught some of his class too, and they were a nightmare). Not only that, she had to hear the talk from Sophie again about how Agatha’s fashion sense was lacking. Apparently showing up to work in a simple professional black dress with a white turtleneck wasn’t enough.

“You have to show your character!” Sophie expanded after four hours for the twentieth time, “show-”

“I will stop this car and shove you out.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


When they finally arrived after going to the homeowner and getting the key, Agatha saw they were the last to arrive. She recognised a few cars there, Hester and Anadil’s sleek black car, Dot’s beet-up white car with a bumper sticker that read ‘let them eat cake!’ and a few other cars that were way too expensive for Agatha to even afford (which wasn’t saying much. Teachers wages weren’t that great, but they were good enough).

As they stepped out of the car, Sophie pushed her sunglasses tinted pink onto her nose, her flowery pink summer dress blowing slightly in the wind, a stark contrast to Agatha’s old band t-shirt and ripped jeans paired with her clumps. Sophie greeted them all with a smile, “I’m so glad you could all make it!”

“I’d rather jump off a cliff than be here,” grumbled Hester, “or maybe be with Anna.”

“We would all like to be somewhere else,” grumbled Agatha as she walked over to them, “Sophie hasn’t stopped commenting on my outfit for the whole drive.”

“Poor soul, five hours of torture,” Anadil spoke, “I’d rather explain reproduction to year sevens than live through that.”

“Now we have assigned rooms!” announced Sophie, “you all get your own unless you have a significant other you want to share with! Right, now, it’s one in the afternoon, we can head off to rooms and then we can explore for the rest of the day!”

Agatha grumbled, before moving towards the house (or mini-mansion as she looked at it). It was spacious, a perfect mix of modern interior and traditional exterior and when she looked out of a large window, she spotted a large pool. The kitchen was spacious, decorated with wood pained white and an overall rustic feel. Stone tiles were what the floor was made of within the living room which was open plan, leading to the dining room with an unevenly shaped table made of wood, furnished to perfection. Agatha let her gaze move to the several bedrooms, a sheet in her hand that Sophie had given her. She was in the first on the right. Huffing slightly, she moved to the door and opened it, greeted with an overly well-light room with a crisp white bed and a wardrobe door open for her to put her things in. 

Setting up wasn’t the hardest thing for Agatha, she got that done quickly. The hardest was fighting between the essays she still hadn’t marked or the fact Dot was going to a fudge shop and Agatha really wanted to try Cornwall’s famous fudge. She looked to the stack of books she’d brought with her and sighed. Essays it was.

She moved the pile of books and her pencil case she’d brought with her to the living room’s spacious couch, swearing vehemently at the weight of the books before finally placing them down, grabbing the first one and flipping to the essay question, ‘to what extent do you agree with the statement: ‘Lady Macbeth is a true villain’?’. She flicked through the first essay, underlining points and jotting down notes like ‘expand’ or using a squiggly line and writing the words ‘waffling’. After about half an hour, she’d finished five.

Sighing, Agatha continued, placing the fifth book on her other side she’d unofficially named the ‘finish’ pile. She pushed through, speeding through seven more essays before she sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Dot had returned by the time she finished her thirteenth essay, offering her a goodie back of chocolate and fudge which Agatha gratefully took. She heard others returning but didn’t look up, that was until she heard a familiar voice, “I-Sophie why is my daughter’s English teacher here?”

Agatha’s brows furrowed, hearing it faintly, finishing her writing as Sophie spoke, “hm? Oh, Aggie! This is my friend from work! Tedros Pendragon! The model? Aggie you remember-”

“You,” Agatha spoke, glaring at him as she closed one of her student’s English books, glaring up at Tedros.

“Oh, you know each other-”

“Her daughters the one who keeps defacing my classroom.”

“She’s the teacher who hates my daughter.”

“I don’t hate your daughter-”

“Didn’t-”

“Not all the time anyway, I don’t like her attitude or how she has several outstanding pieces of homework and the fact she hasn’t changed a bit from year seven. Speaking of your daughter,” snapped Agatha, “where is she? Shouldn’t the single dad be spending time with her?”

“She’s at my mum’s,” huffed Tedros, looking to Sophie, “I thought you said I’d like the people here!”

“Sophie, I thought nobody here was a rich boy?” snapped Agatha, “Sophie, why bring Vogue-boy here?”

“Vogue? Is that sarcasm?”

“Oh yes, how did you know?”

“I’ll have you know I’ve been on the cover of vogue before!”

“Good for you, superficial prick.”

“You b-”

“TEDDY! AGGIE!” screeched Sophie, causing Agatha to wince and shut up immediately, “Please! Not on holiday!”

“Fine,” huffed Agatha, glaring at Tedros, “but he stays away from me.”

“Moody adult-child,” huffed Tedros.

“That’s not even a proper insult, you imbecile.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


The rest of the holiday didn’t fare that well. Agatha began to semi-tolerate Tedros. Dot took a liking to him, offered him her homemade fudge whilst Sophie chastised him for taking the ‘poison’. Whilst Dot and Sophie (and on rare occasions, Agatha) seemed to tolerate (in Sophie’s case they were close friends) Tedros, the others didn’t as much. Hort called him a hunk of idiot, Hester and Anadil would constantly pull jabs at him and Agatha just didn’t want to be in the same room as him.

After day one, she had no marking left, and spent the rest of the six days usually with Hester, dot and Anadil and occasionally Sophie. It wasn’t until the last night where she had to properly interact withTedros again. For the whole week, Sophie had been nagging Agatha about formal wear, saying she needed a dress. Agatha, of course, had not understood exactly why she needed formal wear, but she knew better than to go against Sophie who’s voice could potentially damage her eardrums.

“We’re going to a nice restaurant!” grinned Sophie, “isn’t that exciting?”

  
“Lovely,” grumbled Hester.

“Exquisite,” added Anadil in a sarcastic tone.

“I hate it here,” groaned Agatha.

By the evening, all of them were in the living room, all glammed up. Agatha sat awkwardly in a simple black dress that went to her knees, and a black cardigan (which Sophie insisted wasn’t formal, but really she didn’t care) and flats, whilst Anadil matched similarly except her’s was more gothic, lace patterns of stars and cobwebs mixed within her outfit. Hester wore a suit, with the majority of it being black with the tie an accent red with similar patterns to Anadil’s dress, the two of them with similar expressions to Agatha. Which was to say, they didn’t want to be here. Dot chose to wear a red dress, grinning at the rest to them happily whilst Sophie wore a pink dress that went past her knees and accentuated her figure with Hort wearing a tie that matched her dress. Tedros stood with a navy suit and a simple tie and white shirt, waiting patiently.

“Give me a moment,” Sophie grinned, whipping out her phone as she dialled a number Agatha could only assume was the restaurants. 

She waited a few moments before a voice spoke in an overly chipper voice like she might have been happy at one point during the day, but had spoken too much and genuinely didn’t want to anymore, “Hello, this is Maidenvale Emporium. My name is Tina, how can I help you?”

“Yes, My name is Sophie woods, can I double-check a reservation for tonight?”

“Of course!”

“It should be under Woods,” Sophie elaborated.

There were a few moments of silence before the voice returned, “I’m sorry there is no reservation under Woods.”

“No? Try Sophie,” She continued, Agatha glancing at her sister with a raised brow.

“Ah! Yes! Next week?”

“Ah, um... Could you cancel that?” Sophie began before she smiled, “thank you!”

“Have a lovely night,” Tina responded as Sophie ended the call.

Sophie huffed, glaring at her phone before mumbling, “bitch.”

“So no reservation?” Dot spoke, “so we aren’t going to this restaurant?”

“No,” grinned Hester, “what a shame. Sophie did try, b-”

“But it seems we can’t go,” Anadil grinned, “fish and chips, anyone?”   
  


There was a murmuring agreement between them all.

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**   
  
  
  


The next year brought a revelation. She was given the same year eights (now year nines) again, for three years in a row. The day before school started, she’d made sure to keep all her precious books near her, hoping this might at least prevent the notorious Evangeline Pendragon from messing up her classroom. She’d worked hard on the display boards and like hell was she going to allow some thirteen or fourteen year old to come and royally screw up her room.

However, she was met with a surprise. The first two lessons, she’d waited for Evangeline to disrupt her class, try to rip up a book or do anything to ruin her classroom. Nothing. The young girl hadn’t tried anything. She still wasn’t the brightest when it came to English, but her behaviour had improved significantly. And Agatha actually began to like Evangeline as a student. She tried her best but was always just a mark off from her answer being good. But she was beginning to try in lessons, and that brightened Agatha’s spirits.

By the end of September, no book had been ruined in Agatha’s classroom and neither had the perfect display she’d actually tried on. In fact, she didn’t even have to call Evangeline back to lecture her. Evangeline even came willingly to talk to her. 

“Um, Miss woods?” called Evangeline, “I have a question.”

“Of course,” nodded Agatha, “what is it, Evangeline?”

“Well, I… um, I’m a bit confused about the homework,” she spoke shyly, which was rather unlike the loud girl.

Agatha found herself smiling, looking to the girl who she used to hate and was now starting to tolerate. She smiled, nodding to her as she said, “I’ll help. What is it you don’t understand?”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Another year, and yet another parents evening. So far, she’d had year seven and eight parents evening. Monday (year sevens parents evening) was calmer than usual. Parents still badgered about what their child could do, tried to play up favourites and things she’d seen in the past before. Normal things she’d expect from parents. The year eights were tolerable and the children seemed to look less like they would like they were going to shit themselves with nerves. It was promising. And the year sevens weren't all that bad. Too eager, and a bit too naive, but they were smart and bright.

“Some parent just asked me if I was qualified to teach biology,” grumbled Anadil, “is it because I’m scary looking?”

“Gorgeously so,” added Hester with a smirk as the four (including Agatha) crowded around a table (which was Agatha’s).

“Can you two shove off my table?” grumbled Agatha below her piles of paperwork she’d stacked on the other side, “at least try to be respectful like Dot.”

“Dot’s a shit example,” Hester cackled, “after she blew up the old food tech rooms, she’s been trying to get back into Dovey’s good books ever since. Probably would cry if she stepped a toe out of line.”

“That’s not true!” protested Dot, “should’ve seen the faces of the year sevens when I swore in front of them.”

“Probably shit themselves,” cackled Hester.

“Hester don’t swear in front of the children!” scolded Agatha, looking around before briefly checking her watch before grumbling, “right, five minutes, off you lot go-”

“I swear you’ve sworn in front of kids before Agatha,” Anadil reasoned with a small conniving smirk.

“That’s irrelevant Anadil-”

“I saw a year seven’s life flash before their eyes-”

“That’s enough Anadil-”

“And what about the year before. Agatha, I saw you from across the room flip off Prince Vogue when he was talking to Eva’s maths teacher-”

“Hester who let you spe-”

“How do you even keep your jo-?”

“Um, Ms Woods?” interrupted a voice, making the two teachers and Hester jump away, walking away as soon as Eva spoke again, “We’re a bit early but, uh…”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Agatha rushed, smiling, “take a seat… uh, hello Evangeline and, uh… Mr Pendragon.”

“It’s Tedros,” he gritted out, the same as always.

Ah, it seems his attitude for her hasn’t changed. Agatha smiled stiffly before shooting a smile at Evangeline. She wasn’t exactly her favourite student and she had no idea what made her stop misbehaving but she was thankful. That and the fact Evangeline had soon apologised. she wasn’t redeemed fully, but she was making her way to being a good student in English.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” snapped Tedros.

Hasn’t changed a bit, Agatha thought to herself internally.

“Right,” she spoke, not even looking at Tedros, but smiling at Evangeline, “well good news is your daughter’s behaviour has improved. no longer defacing or ruining classrooms, and no locking me out of a classroom. I don’t know what has changed,” she had a suspicion but she wasn’t going to say,” but Evangeline has improved a lot behaviour wise.”

Agatha’s polite and genuine smile almost turned into a grin as she saw Evangeline’s face brighten significantly. the new freckles she had on her tan skin along with her curly blonde hair made the young teen look almost radiant.

“And as for her English…” she spoke, finally looking at Tedros with a withering glare, “I have suggested many times in previous parents evenings about getting Evangeline a tutor. Evangeline-“

“Yes, Miss Woods?”

“Do you mind finding one of your friends, I need to speak to your father privately for a few moments.”

“Sure Miss Woods!” piped the younger girl, walking away sending a worried glance at her dad before walking away, running the opposite side to a girl Agatha recognised as Annaliese, Anadil and Hesters daughter.

When she left, Agatha turned to Tedros with a scowl, “your cheap threat seemed not to have worked, Mr pendragon.”

“Haven’t used it yet,”

“Sounds like a lie to me,” she seethed, “please refrain from using a threat in me. Your dad might be on the school board but that gives you no right. It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Where is the threat? Next time try do something plausible.”

Agatha’s face hardened and he glared at her, before he stood up abruptly, swaggering away with a look back, an intense glare before he walked away to find his daughter.

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**   
  
  
  


Agatha was about to go to war. Well, not literally, but she was about to scream, shout, curse, and track down Tedros pendragon and slap his perfectly clear and tan face. Had she actually expected Mr Prince Vogue to actually go through with his threat? No, of course she didn’t! How was she supposed to know the imbecile would actually speak to his precious dad? So as she sat in her (yes, her) English classroom, glaring at the trainee teacher who would likely replace her if Dovey actually listened to the complaints of Tedros’ father on the board and didn’t renew her contract.

The students seemed completely interested in the new teacher. And as much as she hated this bloody trainee teacher, she seemed to be doing a better job than her. The current year nine’s were studying much ado about nothing. it seemed with the casual hints from the trainee, stating her obvious disliking towards the sexist banter, won them over, and managed to make Agatha laugh a bit too. The trainee grinned at the class, her curly brown hair was wrapped in a large yellow silk wrap with her curly hair peaking from above. She walked around the front, her large hand gestures and small PowerPoint on benedick’s character seemed to rapture the class. Nicola Ababio, that was the trainee’s name. And she seemed to be accidentally coming for Agatha’s job.

The class seemed to go perfectly for the first twenty minutes. Nobody was misbehaving as Nicola spoke, but as soon as she handed out a piece of paper to each of them for in-depth study, there was a loud tearing sound. Agatha’s eyes latched onto the source, and she frowned as she saw a familiar blonde haired teen frown at the study, crossing her arms as if she wouldn’t learn.

“Miss-”

“Let me handle this, Miss Ababio,” Agatha spoke, frowning at the girl, “Evangeline, please don’t rip up. I thought we were past this.”

“Guess not,” shrugged Evangeline, “can you come and teach us again?”

Did this girl have no… self-restraint? At all?

“You know very well, Evangeline that this lesson is being taught by Miss Ababio,” scolded Agatha in front of the whole class, “Now do you work, I don’t want any complaints.”

“But Mis-”

“No complaints, Evangeline,” she repeated, frowning at the girl before she turned back to Nicola, smiling apologetically as she spoke quietly to Nicola, “I’m sorry about that. She hasn’t done anything like this in a while.”

“No worries,” smiled Nicola, seeming almost too perfect with her mixture of spunk, sarcasm and overall likability, “I was a mess when I was a kid. Broke my arm, wrist, whatever I could in rugby too much, talked back to my teacher too much. I get it.”

Agatha went back to her seat, sitting back, relaxing only slightly as she saw Evangeline whisper something to Annaliese next to her, who seemed to laugh at what she said. 

Nothing much changed after that, after Evangeline’s incident, she seemed to cool down and actually listen to Nicola, but she kept glancing back at Agatha every few moments as if something were wrong. But nothing really was, Nicola was a great teacher, and if Dovey listened then she’d probably be out of the school as an English teacher by the end of the year. Maybe next time, she snapped to herself, I listen to some idiots threat.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sure she’s not coming for your job love,” reassured dot as she sneezed slightly, turning away before patting Agatha in a comforting manner before she added, “She is lovely though. Complemented my fudge.”

“It’s why she’s going to get the fucking job!” seethed Agatha as she slurped her coffee in her cup once more, furiously typing up a lesson plan for three weeks in advance.

“Calm down Agatha,” Anadil spoke as she slid her chair over, a plastic diagram of a heart in her hands as she held it up, “think I can convince my class for April fools day that this is real?”

“Probably,” snapped Agatha in an offhand tone as she drank more coffee, her eyes glued to the laptop screen. Her bad mood had set in just two days of Nicola working as a trainee in school. Dovey seemed delighted with her, so was Lady Lesso. Most of the faculty loved her. Agatha let out a quiet screech before she added, “you're intimidating enough to make anything seem right.”

“Such a lovely compliment,” added Anadil, and Agatha genuinely couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Agatha sighed, her chair wheeling away as she curled up in it, frowning at her laptop far away. time s like these were reasons she hated teacher. And with the background of dot sneezing and Anadil chastising her for not using a tissue, she had no idea how she could survive one more hour of lessons. She huffed again, rolling her eyes before peddling herself back to her desk. It was a sad sight to see, but Agatha was promptly done with teaching as of now and wished her one-hour lunch break could be extended.

Dot sneezed again, snapping Agatha out of her thoughts, making her reach for her cup of coffee, slurping at it once more, before returning back to her marking. After five minutes, a small notification popped up on her screen, and she sighed, clicking it open to find an email sent by-

“What’s Evangeline doing sending me an email?” she wondered aloud.

“I thought you didn’t hate her anymore?” asked Anadil.

“I never hated her-”

“You really want me to give explained of when you-”

“Fudge for any of you?” dot interrupted sweetly, bringing out her usual box of chocolate fudge, grinning at the two of them as she walked over, peering at Agatha’s screen before saying, “is that Evangeline? The girl you hated before?”

“I never hated her!” repeated Agatha, scowling slightly before her gaze shifted from her two friends to the email itself, scanning it intently before saying finally, “she… wants a tutor? Why isn’t she just speaking to me? I- wait, she wants a tutor?”

“That’s good, right?” asked dot, sniffling slightly again before spluttering into coughs. She cleared her throat and opened a bottle of water and drank before adding, “she wants to learn, right?”

“Yes but every time I’ve asked her for a tutor before, she’s skipped the lesson,” muttered Agatha, before she spoke in a curious tone, “what’s changed?”

“Her behaviour?” Anadil suggested, “didn’t you say she was behaving better in your lessons? Maybe she likes you now.”

“She did ask me for help,” mumbled Agatha, mulling over the thought before she spoke, “maybe she has changed… but I know that. But a few days ago with Nicola-”

“Maybe she wanted you to be the one teaching the lesson,” Anadil thought, “Seems she’s growing fond of you, Agatha.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Agatha had a love-hate relationship with sick days. If she wasn’t actually sick and managed to convince Dovey she was, they were a godsend. Most of the day she’d be relaxing, maybe plan a few lessons, and then it was perfectly calm. She’d watch a few movies, maybe sleep more. That was the ‘love’ section of sick days. But when she was actually sick? Torture. You see, Agatha had a strong immune system, so really, nothing actually bothered her when there were colds and flu’s going around the school. She usually was able to avoid them. But, when she did get sick, it was horrible. And this time, it was even worse. She hadn’t thought twice of it a few days ago when dot had been sneezing and coughing on Friday. But when she woke up on Sunday with a sore throat and a cough, she knew trouble would come. She tried to run around her flat, running to try to find something to soothe her throat. Perhaps if she stopped it now, then she wouldn’t feel shit the next day.

Safe enough to say it did not work. On Monday morning, she had to call Dovey, her voice croaky, feeling like somebody was rubbing sandpaper against her throat and her eyes puffy and her head feeling like it weighed a tonne. Her body was full of aches and she grumbled to Dovey in a quiet voice, “I can’t come in today, Dovey.”

“How many times have I told you, Agatha,” sighed Dovey, “to call me Clarissa? I’m not your teacher.”

“Yes Dovey,” she croaked before she sniffled again, “I really can’t come in today. I’ve emailed over work for the cover teacher with instructions too. It’s just to watch ‘much ado about nothing’. I thought I’d give the kids a break. As for year sevens-”

“I understand,” Dovey spoke through the other side of the phone, “rest up Agatha, try some ginger and honey tea.”

“Tried that yesterday,” she croaked, “didn’t work.”

“Come in when you feel better,” Dovey spoke through the phone, “and get rest.”

  
  
  


**⋞** **⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Agatha didn’t understand why she’d called Dovey at six-thirty. School never started that early, but it was the next day as of now, and she had run out of medicine to combat her sickness. Which meant one thing, she’d have to go outside. It wasn’t that big of a deal really, she was just overreacting or making a big deal out of it. She grumbled, cursed a bit, and finally, she got up the next day with a determination to go to the Boots a short bus ride away, and actually buy some medicine. Huffing, she pulled a large coat over her baggy tartan pyjama trousers and tucked in her grey t-shirt. The coat was able to cover most of her and was puffy and the colour black. She moved onwards, grabbing her phone and her purse before unlocking her door with the keys and stepping outside of her flat, looking a bit over-prepared for the slightly chilly weather of late March.

She walked with a dead look on her face, a mixture between a scowl, glare, and a blank gaze. Her back and legs were aching, her throat still was soar and hurt like a bitch and she’d rather be in her bed with her head under a pillow. Everything seemed too bright. The sidewalk that was a dreary grey seemed to blind her, the windows seemed to reflect back too much as she walked from her home to the bus stop. And don’t get her started on the sun. one bloody glance at it and she wondered if she’d go blind.

She grumbled, as the bus arrived, the noise too loud as she got on, tapping her card to the reader before sitting in a seat at the back, closing her eyes as she heard the chatter of teenagers get on the bus, getting ready for school. She checked her watch, seeing it was around eight in the morning. She huffed, closing her eyes as she waited to get ready to get off the bus. 

After around a few minutes the bus finally stopped and she got out, an angry sort of pout on her face as she walked briskly off the bus, heading left in the direction of Boots. She walked in, not really paying attention as she did so. She wasn’t really bothered with much, she just wanted to get her medicine and go.

Walking around, she turned a corner in the shop to the section of the shop she actually needed. She scanned the shelves, picking up the one she needed, the one to treat her weird mixture of a terrible cold and sore throat. Adjusting her coat, she began to walk away, turning the corner again, passing a display of perfectly stacked vitamin tablets. She blinked for a few moments before she stopped, waiting before she sneezed into her elbow before she walked forward, only to be sent stumbling back into the stacked products, causing them to fall to the floor.

Cursing quietly, she tried to balance herself before she bent down, trying to pick up the fallen products, wondering who had pushed when she saw a tan hand begin to pick up the fallen small products too. She didn’t pay much attention to the person, mainly focussing on stacking the products like they had been stacked before. After around five minutes, a colleague came, saying they could leave it there and they’d finish off the stacking. Agatha nodded, thanking the colleague in her croaky voice before she heard a voice say, “sorry for bumping into you.”

“It’s alright,” she managed to say in a cracked voice, walking towards the till, “you probably weren’t looking where you were going.”

Was it just her deliriously ill self, or did that voice sound oddly familiar?

“No, no, it’s my fault,” the voice responded earnestly, sounding low and smooth, sort of like honey (which was a stupid comparison, really), “let me buy you a coffee or something, to make up for it.”

“I-alright,” she decided, not looking back as she spoke, “let me just pay for this.”

“Of course, said the voice.

It was a few moments before she paid for her medicine. Then, she made her way to the figure. His face was covered with sunglasses (which was weird, because it was march. Not that sunny) and had gorgeous blonde hair that looked golden. He was only slightly taller than her, in a blue bomber jacket, as if he was trying to look younger than he was (and she suspected he was only in his early thirties or late twenties). She smiled, although judging by the fact her big puffy jacket was covering most of her mouth, he probably couldn’t see it.

“Where to?” she croaked.

“I heard Putsi Cafe is good,” shrugged Tedros, “I’ve went there a few times.”

“Oh I love that place!” nodded Agatha, “I go there most Sundays.”

“Every Sunday?” the man said, “seems like an addiction to me.”

“It’s not that bad of an addiction,” she lied, knowing just how much of a bad addiction it really was. She was pretty sure her first years of teaching worse. She was practically there every day (a very bad thing. But when coffee tasted so good she really couldn’t help but ignore that), “and they do nice desserts.”

“Really?”

The conversation flowed between them. Agatha couldn’t help but feel like she recognised the voice from somewhere, but with a pounding headache and her overall deliriousness at being ill, she had no idea if it was just her mind playing tricks on her. Maybe it was like that time she’d hallucinated seeing the writing on her curtains (because trust me, at the time, she swore she saw writing on her curtains). They spoke briefly, with Agatha clearing her throat every few seconds, her throat terribly dry and her croaky voice making her sound almost unrecognisable. She pushed her face into her big black puffy coat that reached almost to her ankles (dot had bought it for her last year) as they walked, listening to the strangely familiar blonde man talk.

“Here it is!” he announced, grinning (which was attractive really) as he pushed his heavily tinted sunglasses up, “ladies first.”

Snorting, Agatha opened the door and pushed the man inside, who stumbled before smiling slightly, asking, “what do you want drink-wise?”

“I’ll buy myself something,” she assured.

“I said I’d buy you something,” he argued back, “for bumping into you.”

“I-”

“I insist,” she shrugged, “I’ll have the mocha, but with an extra shot of coffee.”

“Mocha? You pegged me as a black coffee type.”

“Depends what mood I’m in,” she croaked back, before going into a fit of coughing. Looking up, she sent an apologetic smile and managed to say, “sorry, having a bit of a shit day with this weird cold-flu thing I got.”

“I’ll be getting that mocha then,” he nodded, walking away.

For march, the coffee shop was pretty warm. The door was closed and Agatha’s puffy coat was practically boiling her alive. She debated for a moment, whether she should take the coat off or not. The pro’s to taking it off where she wouldn't feel like she was being boiled alive. The cons were people would see she was still clearly in her pyjamas. She decided the pros’ clearly outweighed the cons and she took the large puffy jacket off, hanging it on the back of her chair, taking out her phone and scrolling through it, coughing into her elbow every few minutes, waiting for the mysterious yet familiar man to return.

“I got your mocha,” announced the voice, placing a cup with a plate underneath it in front of her. It smelt heavenly, and the top was lightly dusted with coco-powder. She gladly accepted it and took a large sip, not caring if it was too hot. After placing it down, she looked to the man and grinned. But as soon as she did, his face shifted to a frown, “I know you.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked, sipping her delicious mocha again, wondering if it really was her mind playing tricks on her because she swore he sounded very, very familiar now.

“You’re that bloody English teacher. My daughter’s English teacher,” he scowled.

“Who’s your daughter?” she asked, tilting her hair.

“Evangeline.”

“Which one?” she blurted out, her head killing her as she continued (she honestly needed to take something for her headache stat), “there’s one in year seven, there’s around eight in year eight. Ironic really. There’s- oh there’s one in year nine. Lovely girl. Finally listening to me. Year ten… none. One in year thirteen. A lot of Evangelines I teach.”

“Dear god woman, what are you-? i-” he hissed quietly, “I mean Evangeline Pendragon!”

“Oh, year nine Evangeline?” Agatha wondered aloud, blinking sluggishly before rubbing her eyes as the man across from her whipped of his sunglasses. She gasped suddenly as if her brain had finally caught up with what she was seeing, “You’re that- PRINCE VOGUE BOY!”

“Shush!” he hissed, pushing the tinted black sunglasses back on his face.

“Why did you buy me a mocha!”

“I wouldn’t have bloody bought it if I knew it was you. Couldn’t bloody recognise your voice and half your face was covered by that stupid coat!” grumbled Tedros, scowling at her.

“What are you even doing here?” she snapped, her croaky voice making her sound less intimidating than she wanted.

“Dropped Eva off late. Had to take her to the dentist for a yearly checkup,” sighed Tedros, taking off the sunglasses for a moment before rubbing his eyes. Agatha looked closer. Eye bags. Probably hasn’t got enough sleep.

What Agatha did next was the most un-Agatha thing she’d done in her life. If she disliked somebody, she’d dislike them until she was given a solid reason for liking them. If she disliked somebody she wouldn’t have ever stayed, and if she disliked somebody, she certainly wouldn’t ask-

“Want to go on a walk? There’s a park near her.”

(She blames the fact she was sick. That’s the reason).

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


“You have eye bags,” she blurted as she sipped at the to-go cup she’d glared at Tedros to ask for (even if she was sick and maybe a few centimetres or so shorter than him, she was still intimidating and fucking scary when she wanted to be. Croaky voice or not).

“Great observation,” huffed Tedros.

“Why?”

Dear god, who let sick-Agatha out?

“Didn’t get enough sleep,” huffed Tedros, “been running around the last week trying to run away from paparazzi.”

“Paparazzi?” she wondered aloud before she widened her eyes and spoke, “oh yeah. Model. Why though?”

“They thought I was dating somebody,” he huffed, “I really don’t know what’s that interesting about my love-life. The nutters thought I was dating one of my close friends, Beatrix.”

“Beatrix?” she spoke, “who’s she?”

“You probably know her as ‘Bea’, if you’ve listened to anything on a few radios,” Tedros shrugged, “she's my friend. A singer. She has a good few songs out, an album too. But not that well known. They thought I was dating her,” he spoke, looking to the ground, a sort of trance washing over him as he chuckled, “stupid idea really. She’s dating a woman called Reena. Lovely girl. Two of them love to make fun of me. Bea and I have been friends since I was a little kid, and she loves to send blackmail to Reena. I was a bloody midget when I was a teenager. Nothing wrong with that, but Beatrix loved to call me ‘imp’. Was a bit annoying.”

She listened as he continued. Describing how Reena was part of a fencing club, in her part-time, and that’s how both Tedros and Reena met. They became sort-of friends and when Beatrix introduced Tedros to Reena it was a funny surprise. He went on, saying how the two often loved to laugh and jokingly make fun of him. They were also the ones who came to his shoots sometimes and usually got kicked out because they made him laugh. He twisted back eventually, adding how Reena worked part-time in a flower shop with a girl called-

“Kiko?” Agatha repeated, “I went to school with her!”

“Really?” Tedros asked, the two of them pausing in the park, “Woah. Small world.”

“Seems so,” nodded Agatha.

The two were silent. It felt weird. Agatha sipped on her coffee, letting the sweet but slightly bitter taste help her mull over her thoughts. After Tedros endearingly rambling about his friends, she didn’t know what to think of him Before this, she’d thought of him as a pain in her arse, an annoyance, a spoiled prat who asked his father for everything. But after those few words, she had no idea. Her views shifted, and she was left confused.

“This is weird,” she blurted out, being way too blunt for her own good, “I swear you hate me. Because I was a bitch to your daughter for literally two years.”

“Well Eva was exactly a saint either,” Tedros spoke awkwardly, “I mean with my job and being a single dad things were tough. Eva didn’t exactly tell me about anything that was going wrong, she just let me find out. You were the main person who kept sending complaints. For some reason, she didn’t do it in other classes. She didn’t deface classrooms, she didn’t do anything like that.”

He sighed, and Agatha stayed silent as they continued to talk (and walk), “and last year, when you said about the attention thing… and just, you were right.”

“I was angry,” Agatha spoke, feeling guilty (only slightly) as she saw Tedros frown, “i-”

“But you were right,” he spoke sadly, “I… I was young when Eva was born. I was still a teenager. The mum didn’t want her, pushed her to me. I- I didn’t want to be like my dad-”

“The one on the school board?”

“That’s the one,” Tedros spoke, smiling sadly, “he might seem all composed, but when I was a teen he was a drunk, threw bottles at the wall after my mum left. They’d divorced, you see, and my dad couldn’t take it apparently. He’s better now, I still hate him, but he got Eva into this school. I wanted her to go to a normal school. Being a model and everything I didn’t want Eva to be exposed too much to that sort of life. It’s toxic when you’re so young. Fame comes with a price. But dad insisted… said with the amount of money I earn that I should at least settle for a private school and then she got in after dad referred her. I’m just... I don’t mean to be a terrible dad.”

“I never meant to ignore her either,” added Tedros, “but I did. But… last summer, after Cornwall, I just.. I tried to stop that. Me and Eva-”

“Eva and I,” she automatically corrected before she cringed and spoke, “Sorry.”

“Should’ve guessed that from an English teacher,” Tedros laughed, looking at her. And for once, he wasn’t scowling or glaring at her. The angry sort of tension between them was fading. “But well, Eva and I took a bit of a trip, I didn’t want to ignore her anymore. I’d been taking so many offers from work before that I barely had time for her. I work less now, and I get to spend more time with Eva. Which is good. but sometimes I just feel that I’m still distant, you know? Like, what if now isn’t enough? When she was little I tried to spend as much time with her as I could. But I was still in school. And uni- uni was shit. I just… what if this isn’t enough?”

There was silence for a few moments as they continued to walk. Agatha sneezed slightly before she spoke, “for what it’s worth, I might have judged you wrong. You’re not that bad of a dad. At least you’re willing to admit what you’ve done wrong. I’ve had kids whose parents are stubborn as hell, deny everything immediately. You tried to change, and that’s what matters. And to be honest, Evangeline’s behaviour has improved significantly in class. And I think with the help of the tutor this year, she’ll go into year eleven with more knowledge. I have no idea who her teacher is going to be next year. It probably won’t be me, school basically has a policy about having a teacher teach the same form for four years. That and option blocks… but I’m sure she will do fine.”

“Thanks,” mumbled Tedros.

“And if it helps,” added Agatha, her voice still painfully croaky (although the more she spoke, it seemed to go away slightly), “Evangeline speaks highly of you.”

“Really?” Tedros grinned, perking up slightly.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “and I’m sure your daughter will pass her GCSEs.”

Tedros snorted, “I’ll bloody snog whoever gets her to pass. In all seriousness, I’ve been a stubborn fuck by not listening to you with that tutor thing. But when Eva told me she actually asked this year, I was kind of relieved.”

Agatha let out a quiet laugh before she coughed again, her mind suddenly ging to the medicine in her pocket as she cursed, “oh for fucks sake! I knew I had it somewhere!”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


By Thursday, she was ready to come back to school. And it seemed all her classes had missed her dearly. When her year nine class arrived for English they grinned at her, shouting things such as, “you’re back miss!”

“Miss you’re alive!”

“Vera, shut up you can’t just say that to a teacher-”

“Says you Ev, what was it you were doing last year?”

“Quit it the both of you,” snapped a familiar voice of Annaliese before she smiled to Agatha, “Hi ag- Miss woods.”

Agatha laughed, like, actually laughed as she stood in front of the room, a cream shirt with a sort of tan and tartan trousers with a baggy white cardigan over it as she spoke, “glad to see I was missed.”

She looked at her students and smiled. Eva and Anna were towards the back, but just close enough for her to see. The school didn’t have that strict of a rule against dying hair, so it wasn’t a surprise to see Hester and Anadil’s daughter take advantage of that. With her caramel coloured skin and silky black hair, were two electric blue stripes of hair, framed around her face. She grinned at something Eva had said before she looked away. Agatha’s eyes flicked to Eva, next to the girl. She looked very smiley, her blonde hair tied up into a bun, with a few small pieces of hair framing her face. The two wore the same uniform, the same navy blue tartan skirts (or in Anna’s case, trousers) and tie along with the plain white shirt, yet the two looked so different. 

“Right,” she spoke, trying to break herself out of her train of thought, “well… glad to see you’ve all here. Right, well let’s start with today's work-”

She grinned a lot in the lesson. She didn’t know that a few days without her would be like this. Her class was so energetic and helpful. She’d decided their first day back that they would just review the film (which actually was a lesson she had planned) and talk about the differences from the film they’d watched their first lesson when she wasn’t here to the play on their second lesson of her not being here. It turned out well, with most of them responding with smart answers that made Agatha smile brightly. By the end of the lesson, she was all smiles a laughs as she waved away her students. But one stayed.

“Evangeline?” she spoke with a warm sort of smile, “Did you want to speak to me?”

“Uh, yes,” nodded Evangeline before she said, “miss Woods, I just wanted to say that the tutoring is going really well.”

“Really?” she spoke, an amused smile on her face.

“I mean they aren’t as good as you- but-”

“Thank you for telling me, Evangeline,” laughed Agatha before she turned, seeing a huddle of year seven’s outside her door, “but you might want to be heading off to your next lesson, Evangeline.”

“Of course,” grinned Evangeline, before she grinned, waving goodbye as she said, “have a lovely day Miss!”

“You too!” responded Agatha before she walked to the door, looking at the year sevens before signalling theme in, “c’mon. In you go.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


Agatha woke up at nine on Sunday. Deciding it was a perfect time to grab a coffee, she actually forced herself out of bed. She looked out of the window, not too bothered by the small drizzle of rain in the air (she wasn’t a hater of rain so she really didn’t care). She shuffled to her closet, randomly grabbing a black turtleneck and some sort of jeans (she thinks they’re her baggy ones. She has no idea) before she snatched her raincoat and a few other necessities before she stepped out of the house, deciding to walk to Putsi cafe.

It didn’t take that long to walk, and the drizzle didn’t annoy her that much. By the time she entered the coffee shop, it had only just opened, with her being one of the first. She opened the door to the shop, a small tinkling bell ringing before she stepped in, greeted by a few familiar faces.

“Will,” she spoke, grinning at the tall and lanky red-haired boy, “americano please.”

“Right,” noted William (or will as she called him) as he walked over a bit and yelled to a shorter boy, “AMERICANO, BOGDEN!”

“I hear the first time when she said the bloody order!” Bogden shouted, pushing his brown hair back before he huffed, letting out a grumble followed by curse words.

There was silence for a few moments, and Agatha looked down to her phone, deciding to busy herself by checking on messages and what-not before she heard Bogden yell, “TO GO CUP?”

“Sure!” she responded before she looked back to her phone, walking slowly over to the counter. She waited a few more moments before she saw a to-go cup slide over to her, and she grabbed it, thanking the both of them.

“See you lot next Sunday!” she called, still looking down on her phone as she began o walk to the door. A distinct bell sound was heard again and Agatha’s head snapped up to see-

“Tedros?”

“Agatha,” he greeted, the two of them awkwardly nodding at each other. It wasn’t as if they hated each other now, which was a good thing. After their talk in the park (more like Tedros admitting to being a bad dad and Agatha trying to console him) the two hadn’t insulted each other. And Tedros seemed to lay off her with the constant emails. 

“What are you doing here?” asked Tedros.

“Getting coffee,” she shrugged, holding up her to-go cup, “is that a crime, Mr pendragon?”

“Oh shove off,” he huffed, rolling his eyes as he ordered. She stayed there for a few moments, leaning against a wall, sipping her coffee as she scrolled through her phone. She really could’ve just went and walked back to the bus stop. But by the looks of it outside, it seemed to be raining heavily (more so than the gentle drizzle earlier) and she had stupidly not brought an umbrella. And as much as she didn’t hate the rain, she really didn’t want to run to the bus stop with hot coffee in her hand.

“Where are you going after this?” asked Tedros, looking at her.

“Home, I suppose,” she shrugged, looking out at the window, “but judging by the shit weather it’s going to be fun.”

“I have an umbrella,” supplied Tedros.

“And?” she spoke, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Well, if you don’t have anything to do today..” shrugged Tedros, before rushing out, “like- within a few hours or anything-”

“BOGDEN WHY DON’T YOU AND I GO ON OUR BREAK?”

“But who would-?”

“Let’s go!”

“-uh, as I was saying,” mumbled Tedros, “why don’t we have a walk around the park. I have an umbrella and-”

“Sure,” Agatha said, “but don’t hog the umbrella, Tedros.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said my name.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Agatha didn’t know how, but for some reason, Sunday’s became a usual day for the two adults to meet up. It was strange, Agatha used to hate Tedros. Yet as Sundays passed she found herself not hating him or finding it awkward around him. There was some sort of middle ground now. Like they were almost friends. A weird thing really. But Agatha felt like he was her friend now. The Sundays ranged from a short walk around the park, with Agatha venting about some student or along walk that lasted maybe an hour which consisted of Tedros and Agatha laughing at embarrassing stories. It was weird but for some reason she liked it.

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


When summer holidays came, Agatha was glad. Nothing much happened that summer. Tedros had gone on holiday with Evangeline so their usual Sunday morning walks had pretty much vanished. But he’d given her his phone number (and quite awkwardly too, looked like a tomato when he did) and had said if she ever wanted to chat she could. And she’d taken the offer up once or twice and had called him. But mostly her holidays revolved around Sophie dragging her into her shop, asking for her opinion on fabrics even though she knew very well how much of a novice Agatha was to anything fashion related.

By the start of next year, she was surprised to find she was still teaching Evangeline. A grin had actually appeared on her face when she was told, which was weird because only two years ago she’d thought she was cursed to have to teach Evangeline. But here she was, two years later, with the girl now in year ten, grinning at the fact she was. Sure, the girl wasn’t always good academically wise when it came to English but at least she didn’t deface her classroom anymore.

Her first week went as well as a first week could. Which was to say it went moderately ok. Normal KS3 was simple as before, but explaining again to the new year tens and elevens about how their GCSE’s were coming up was nerve-racking. Last year, she’d made one year eleven cry because she was a tad too harsh. So this year, she’d decided to reel it back and try to be nicer. And it sort of ended up working, Which she found to be good. By the end of week one, she was filled with hope. Maybe this year would actually be perfect. Maybe parents' evenings this year would last a shorter amount of time. 

And maybe-

“What do you mean a week?” she seethed to Dovey and Lady Lesso, looking between the two with a scowl, “what have I done to have a trainee take over my job again for a week!”

“She’s no longer a trainee anymore,” Lady Lesso noted, “and we can’t tell you why. You know this. I’m sure you know your contract is coming to an end-”

“But I’ve worked at this school for at least seven years! Are you saying that those seven years of high grades from my GCSE and A-levels students means nothing to you?!” she argued, frowning at the two older women.

“Agatha dear-” Clarissa began.

“No-!”

“The school board has heavily suggested we look for different English teachers. One of them had raised a complaint before and has now repeated that complaint again. He seems to have heard from somebody that we need… kinder English teachers-”

“I AM KIND!” she seethed, making Dovey widen her eyes. Agatha took a deep breath and looked between them, “it’s barely a week into school. Are you really saying this?”

“You joined us in the first term and have been renewing your contract every first term,” Lady Lesso spoke, looking genuinely sad as she continued, “it was not our choice, Agatha. Mr pendragon got enough signatures from the school board for us to at least consider a new English teacher-”

“Pendragon?” Agatha spoke, looking between them, “as in Arthur Pendragon-?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Agatha,” Dovey dismissed quickly as she stood up, opening her door and gesturing for Agatha to leave, “I suggest you take this week as relaxation. It’s not confirmed we will be taking Miss Ababio as a new English teacher. It’s-”

“Of course,” she nodded, trying to calm herself down, “well, see you hopefully within a week.”

And then she left, scowling at the ground, the bell ringing for first period. But she couldn’t even listen. Because one thing raged in her mind, ringing like the bell over and over again as her scowl came to her clenching her fists as she walked out of the school building with a vengeful look on her face. Pendragon. And that meant one thing. Tedros was behind this.

“And just when that prat was getting into my good books.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


For the remainder of the week, Agatha genuinely wondered whether she should face Tedros or not. She was still seething, and it was nearly Sunday, their usual day for walking and chatting. She should have been looking forward to it, but she just couldn’t. Not when she knew the reason her job could potentially be in danger. And that it was all his dad’s fault. And logically, he was the reason why. seems he had actually gone through with the threat even after the fact they were growing to be friends (with Agatha even finding him only slightly attractive). she didn’t know what to do. 

When she thought about it, she and Tedros had grown to be close. She’s been close friends with him after those walks and she felt like it was easy just to be Agatha with him. Not Agatha, the English teacher, or Miss Woods, the teacher who tried her hardest in class to get her students to pass. She was just Agatha, and she liked that a lot.

She didn’t know why she felt so upset, Tedros was just some friend she walked with on Sunday’s. But knowing how long she’d spent talking to him, how long he’d listen for her talk (and how much she’d talk to him about. things that even Sophie didn’t always know). it felt horrible to know those things had gone to waste and she could potentially be fired. the school board were in charge of the big devious and as much as Dovey and Lady Lesso wanted to reassure her she wouldn’t get fried, Agatha knew that something was wrong and she just didn’t like it one bit.

And so the horrible and vicious cycle had started. one moment she’d be angry at Dovey and Lady Lesso, raging around her flat and the next moment she’d be on the couch crying and sulking. She’d cry about how Tedros how practically betrayed her and she just didn’t know how to deal with it. She’d raged about it to Hester and Anadil and had to quickly snap out of her rage to make sure Hester didn’t try poison or hit Tedros. Working at a local boxing club as a coach pretty much meant she could probably give him a concussion if she wished to. 

And then she’d grow furious again after crying and then she’d thrown out everything he’d bought her after the number of times he’d bumped into her. (He’d insisted on buying her a new scarf after he promptly sent her crashing into a bush that ripped up her scarf).

It sounded like something out of a bad breakup (and Sophie had cackled about that before Agatha started getting angry at her and Sophie had comforted her again). It was nothing like a breakup, Agatha had constantly reminded herself, because like hell would she date that gorgeous prick. 

She was backtracking herself, disagreeing and then agreeing with herself. Huffing frustratedly or crying for some unknown reason. She’d never reacted like this before. But to her, it was more than losing a friend she thought she had. It was worse than when she was in secondary school and for a brief period she was friendless because Sophie had basically left her. It was worse because she loved this school. Sure, she had her complaints with Gavaldon prep. But she felt connected to it. She loved the place more than she should. The teachers. Dovey, Lesso, Anadil, Dot, even Hort. The students, Annaliese, Emmaline, all the others. Evangeline.

The girl who used to deface her classroom. The one who used to disrupt her class and annoy Agatha to no end. She was the one who used to annoy her. Yet now, she missed it. There was a high likelihood she might be fired. What would she do then? Look For another school? Who would want her teaching at their school when she got fired from her previous one. And with Arthur Pendragon on the school board, she could say goodbye to her teaching courier forever.

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  


Agatha Woods had finally decided to herself she was going to go this morning to Putsi Cafe with Tedros. They were going to go for a walk and she was going to ask why the hell he’d done what he did. In her mind, the whole thing was ridiculous to some extent. She felt like she was in some cheap drama show on tv. Like some stupid episode of Hollyoaks or something. Huffing, she looked out of her window and checked her phone. A sunny day. She grabbed a simple black t-shirt and jeans and grabbed the first light jacket she could find, a simple bomber jacket with a moon stitching on the back. She’d gotten it when she turned twenty-one, a present from her sister who’d insisted it fit her ‘witchy vibe’ perfectly. And as much Agatha loved to scold her sister, she really did appreciate the sentiment.

She grabbed her keys and other necessities and slammed her front door to her flat, a loud sound probably waking her neighbours up. She walked to the bus stop, a stone-cold glare on her face as she waited ages for the bus. When it finally came she sent a small smile to the driver (she wasn’t about to be rude to the person who spent most of their day driving so many people around. And people were hardly ever nice to bus drivers). She walked down and found a seat to herself. 

Her ride was short and hardly scenic. The grin she would’ve worn previous Sunday’s was gone and replaced with a deep frown and glare. Walking out of the bus, she yelled a very loud, “thank you!” before she was faced with a familiar blonde-haired man, holding two iced coffees in his hand.

“Pretty warm today,” he grinned, looking back at her with a charming smile as he walked forward, “so I bought the both of us iced coffee’s.”

He’s trying to make up for being a shit friend, Agatha reasoned to herself with a scowl. She walked behind him, looking at her coffee before taking a sip, slightly surprised he’d remembered she liked her iced coffee unsweetened. She huffed, walking next to him with a frown.

“You okay?” he asked, turning to her as she caught up to him, tilting his head ever so slightly, “you look a bit sad today. Was it some year seven again?”

“Am I okay?” she repeated, glaring at him as she clutched the iced coffee in her hand, “did you seriously just ask me that?”

“Oh we’re being dramatic today,” grinned Tedros, “cool.”

“It’s not funny,” she spoke, scowling at him. But he still didn’t seem to get it, so she eyed him curiously, a glare still on her face as she asked him, “how have Evangeline’s lessons been?”

“Lessons? They’ve been good- oh, hey. I was meaning to ask, Eva said you weren’t in school. Said some trainee was here this week. Where you sick or-?”

“What do you think, Tedros?” she seethed, looking at him with a scowl as they walked around the quiet park, the only noise from the clinking of the ice in the coffees and Agatha’s heavy breathing, “surely you should know all about the trainee. Since your fucking father was the one who might potentially get me fired.”

“What?”   
  


“The threat a few years ago?” she elaborated, “don’t act so innocent Tedros. Are you genuinely dumb? Because I remember our conversation.”

“Agatha are you alright?” he asked, looking at her with a bewildered expression, “why are you so angry-”

“Because YOU’RE GOING TO GET ME FIRED!” she finally yelled out, stopping where she was and glaring at him, “you and your stupid father are going to get me fired from one of the best jobs I’ve had! Is this because of what happened when Eva started school? When I was rude? What is your problem with me Tedros? I thought after we started being friends you’d stop this! Are you so pathetic that you still want me gone?”

“But I never said anything to my-”

“Don’t lie,” she snapped, her voice cold, “you’ve always been terrible at that. And here I thought the self-pretentious prince vogue was more than some posh brat of a model sending his daughter to a private school.”

“Agatha that’s-”

“What did you want me to do after you said the threat? Bow down to you and cling to you like you say those bloody paparazzi people do? Do you want me to grovel at your feet like people do? Tedros after all this time of being friends- or at least, what I thought was friends, you’ve acted like the most down to earth person I know. Why the sudden character change? Do you expect me to act like other-”

“OBVIOUSLY NOT,” he suddenly roared over her, seeming to get worked up by her taunts, “WHY DO YOU THINK I LIKE YOU SO MUCH?”

She didn’t know who was more shocked between the both of them. Her, because he’d actually shouted at him. Or Tedros, because he looked like he’d just exposed his biggest secret. He had no words to actually respond to him with. Gapping like a fish, Agatha’s body moved faster than her brain could, and she opened the lid of her iced coffee, and before she could even regret her actions, she’d thrown her drink at him, before her legs practically peddled her away.

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Agatha couldn’t decide who was more of a shit person. Tedros, for practically getting her fired (she was being put on review. With a teacher in the room as she taught and Nicola taking half of her lessons). Or her, for shouting at him and spilling iced coffee on him (although Hester and Anadil constantly reassured her that it was hilarious and that she should’ve “taken a bloody video or something!”). It was nearing parents evening and all she wanted to do was crawl up in a ball and sleep. She had no idea if Tedros and Eva would be specifically visiting her for parents evening, but she was praying they weren’t. She could not be bothered to face him. 

At least there was a positive to this all. From Nicola’s reports on lessons to Agatha’s own lessons being reviewed, she knew Evangeline had been improving. Slowly but surely, she’d made herself get closer to the top half of the class, and was now improving and becoming closer to Agatha’s favourite student. Judging from some of the sympathetic stares she gave to Agatha, she knew of the argument she’d had with Tedros. But Agatha couldn’t blame Evangeline when she’d come to her before lesson and had genuinely apologised for whatever had happened (because even Evangeline didn’t have a clue). 

There was one final observation, not exactly a positive, but something to be noted, at least. Annaliese and Evangeline had become very close friends. Very. the two were never seen without each other, and Agatha sensed an air of protectiveness for the other over them. It was sweet really, like a small little teenage love story. The two of them strangely reminded her of Tedros and herself. When Agatha didn’t hate him, of course. and for some reason, she was a little jealous of it. But she smiled at them as they left her classroom at the end of the day. She hauled herself up, grabbing her supplies as she made her way to the main hall, where year ten’s parents evening would take place.

“You know you’ve been glum these past few days,” Hort spoke as he walked alongside her (although she never noticed it. She didn’t speak to him much), “saw you snap at a bunch of year sevens in the halls. Usually, that’s Lesso’s job.”

“Prats were running in the hallways,” she grumbled.

“What did you have another fight with that pendragon boy?” Hort asked, shifting the weight of a pile of history books so they wouldn’t fall.

“Oh shut up Hort,” she snapped, bubbling anger appearing from nowhere, “just because you’re in a happy relationship doesn’t mean-”

“Was,” corrected Hort.

That stopped Agatha’s weird war-path, “what?”

“I mean I’m not dating Sophie any more,” he said, a hint of bitterness but mostly sadness in his voice, “I respect the decisions as to the reason why we broke up. It was only yesterday. Hurts, but I’m happy for her.”

“What do you mean?” she frowned, wondering what Hort knew about Sophie that she didn’t.

“Sophie broke up with me,” he shrugged, “I’m sure she’ll tell you why soon.”

Agatha glanced at Hort, ideas and theories swirling in her mind before she shrugged it off, waving it away like it was dust. She moved forwards, waltzing numbly to her seat. She laid out her things, scowling at the table. It was too late, and she just wanted sleep. She had a bottle of cheap wine calling her name at home. She had around ten minutes until people start coming in. add that to the fact her first meeting was in ten minutes after people started to come in, and she had a long time to wait. If-

Her phone began to ring. Strange really, the only person who usually called her was-

“Sophie?” Agatha wondered, “you know I have parents evening.”

“Aggie I need to tell you something!” pleaded Sophie, sniffling slightly over the phone.

“Wha- are you ok Sophie?” Agatha suddenly rushed, “are you hurt-? What happened?”

“No, nothing like that,” Sophie sniffled, “I should feel worse than this. I broke up wit-”

“Hort, I know,” Agatha finished before she added, “he told me. Never said the reason why though. Why? Is this something to do with that? Sophie are you ok?”

“Aggie I think I’m gay. Actually, I know I’m gay. Or, homosexual. Whatever you want to call it,” she whispered over the phone, sniffling slightly, “Hort and I have been dating for a few years, Aggie. I kept saying to myself that something was there. He’s a nice person if I forget about how creepy he is sometimes. But he’s like an endearing little weasel- but Aggie I don’t think I like him. As in, romantically like him.”

“Sophie are you upset because you think I won’t accept that my own sister is homosexual?” Agatha asked, genuinely hurt, “Sophie, I would support you no matter what. I’m so proud of you for saying this to me. And are you forgetting I’m literally bi?” Agatha let out a soft laugh to the phone, smiling genuinely, “Sophie I’m so proud of you-”

“I’m NOT CRYING ABOUT BEING ATTRACTED TO GIRLS YOU IDIOT!” Sophie screeched over the phone, “I’M GLAD ABOUT THAT PART!”

“Oh dear god, fine! You’re not crying because of that!” Agatha spoke, wincing at how high pitched Sophie had went, “so what are you crying over?”

“Aggie tomorrow I have a client and they asked me for the most dreadful combinations of fabric!” she whined over the phone, “as much as I appreciate your support for me coming out,” Sophie spoke, her voice sounding serious as she had said that. But it turned back to her whine as she continued, “but this is a matter of life and death!”

“Right, ok, ok,” Agatha nodded, “Sophie I don’t think I can do anything about that-”

“I know it’s so tragic!” she wailed over the phone.

“Sophie shush!” scolded Agatha before she asked, “how did you even break up with Hort?”

“I don’t know aggie!” Sophie spoke, “for the past few months it had been in my- no, not months. I think for the last year. I kept pushing it away. And then, last night, I don’t know- I just blurted it out. I didn’t feel an attraction to him. And there was this rather attractive woman who’d entered my shop a week prior. And- oh aggie! He was so nice about it! Respected me completely- but Agatha that’s not the point of this call! WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THE CLIENT?!”

“How am I supposed to now, Sophie?” Agatha responded, wincing at her sisters whiny and high-pitched voice. She sighed, before she spoke, “Sophie I have to go soon. I have parents evening-”

“Oh that’s right,” grumbled Sophie, “with Tedros pendragon. God Agatha the amount of tension between you and Tedros darling. I know what happened but-”

Words rang in her mind at that point, OBVIOUSLY NOT, he had suddenly roared, WHY DO YOU THINK I LIKE YOU SO MUCH?

“-Aggie are you still there? Oh has the line cut off? I swear to god if it has-”

“No,” cut off Agatha, “no, it’s still here. I just- I have to go Sophie.”

“But Agatha this is a-”

“Sophie I have students coming,” she spoke. A lie. She had around ten minutes left. But she didn’t really want to talk. She huffed, speaking a, “goodbye Soph.” to the phone before she took it from her ear and pressed the end call button on the screen, placing it down. She smiled at the thought of her sister, before the stressing thoughts of parents evening and everything about it.

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  
  


For some reason, Agatha had gotten lucky. She had one student left, one student left and she could honestly go back home. She didn’t even need to check who was next because she knew from Tedros’ habits he liked to book early appointments (he’d told her once on one of their walks) and she found herself grinning, waiting the five minutes until the next person was here. She flipped through her file, hoping that they might sit down soon.

“Uh… Agatha?”

“Hm?” she looked up, the grin on her face dropping by the moment as she stiffened up, “oh, Mr pendragon.”

“You can call me Tedros, you know,” he mumbled quietly, looking at her still hurt and confused, but with just a sprinkle of uncertainty mixed into the chaos. She scoffed, making him look up at her and he frowned, looking away. It was awkward, to say the least, and Agatha did not want to be here

“Where’s Evangeline?” she asked, ignoring him completely.

“Started feeling sick before parents evening,” he spoke, still not looking at her, as if embarrassed. Or maybe he felt guilty (as he should), “missed my first few appointments with teachers. But I was able to speak to them in the free time between my previous one nad this. Eva sends her best wishes.”

For some reason, that made her smile. But she covered it quickly before she spoke, “well then, let’s not waste time-”

“Agatha-”

“Academically your daughter has been improving a lo-”

“Agatha-”

“And she’s become one of my top students I teach. I think-”

“Agatha-”   
  


“She will most certainly pass her GCSE’s and her behaviour is as always goo-”

“AGATHA!” he shouted, his voice almost blaring across the many voices of teachers and students. almost. Thankfully, the voice of others talking drowned him out slightly as she stared at him with wide eyes.

“What?”

“It wasn’t me!” was his only response.

Pathetic really. Agatha huffed, running a hand through her hair, letting her black hair fall back where it was before. If she didn’t know what Tedros was talking about, she could have assumed it meant many things. It could’ve meant that he hadn’t, say, murdered somebody (unlikely. His hands were baby smooth. Weird observation but still-). Or he could’ve not, broken something (like trust, for example-). But Agatha knew what it meant, sort of, and she scowled.

“You mean you didn’t do all of this? With your threat?”

“Originally, like a year ago or something. But I told my dad never to do it. But somebody else on the school board-”

“Who else on the school board would want me gone?” scowled Agatha, “stop making things up, Tedros.”

“It’s the-no it’s Sader!”

“August Sader?” she frowned, looking at him like he was stupid, “he’s retired Tedros. He did so this year. Don’t be an imbecile-”   
  


“The other one! What was her name-? EVELYN SADER!” he suddenly cried, looking at her, “you have to believe me, Agatha! I saw her talking to dad and I know she wants you gone! I know it! She said your sister… what was it? I don’t remember. But she-”

“What has this got to do with Sophie?” Agatha thought before she frowned, “Oh god, this is about Japeth and Rhian isn’t it?”

“Exactly it wasn’t my fault!” Tedros spoke, “that woman is poison! Probably persuaded dad to do this! I know my dad isn’t great. And trust me, I hate him too- but he wouldn’t do something like this!”

Agatha rolled her eyes. Sure, the story sounded convincing in its own. But Tedros looked to happy with it. Or maybe that was just paranoia. But she didn’t trust it as of now. She’d do a bit of digging herself before she considered Tedros’ apology. She looked at him, noticing just how stressed he looked. Sort of like he was a sad puppy who was stressed out about the fact nobody was talking to him. Kind of cute actually. He kept looking at her, big eyes and a wide face as if that would lull her into forgiving him. Not the right answer, but she looked over at him and she sighed, “I’m not forgiving you yet. Sort of-”

“Oh-”

“But I don’t hate you as much as before,” she spoke quietly, closing her folder before she took a deep breath in, “I’m not going to try to forget what happened. You started this in the first place with your threat. Or maybe it was me being rude to Evangeline in her first year. But I nearly got fired from my job. I still could. Nobody wants a teacher who’s been fired. Because they’ll ask why. Then they’ll look at the reasonings and you won’t get hired. I love to be a teacher,” she muttered, looking to the table with a sad frown, “as much as I find kids annoying at times, I like to watch them learn, to get things correct and to see their faces light up with joy when they do get something correct. If I wasn’t a teacher, I don’t know what I would really do.”

“I-”

“That’s all,” she mumbled, closing her folder, “I hope you have a wonderful night.”

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


It wasn’t until three weeks later when she finally had no teacher in the room whilst she taught. And although Nicola was still teaching the other half of her classes, Agatha was told to spectate and make notes and Nicola, to see if she would be a good teacher. Agatha didn’t know the reason behind the sudden change, but she wasn’t going to be ungrateful about it. She was getting some of her freedom back as a teacher and she wasn’t about to argue with it. It wasn’t until somebody knocked on the staffroom door when Agatha really found out why.

It was a normal lunch, with Agatha scarfing down a sandwich she’d hastily bought from M&S in the morning, with a small tissue stacked with what seemed to be the leaning tower of chocolate fudge pieces. She’d just finished her sandwich when Anadil spoke, “you still on review?”

“Teacher isn’t in my room now,” Agatha spoke, eyeing one of the chocolate fudge pieces as she spoke to Anadil, “and I’m just taking notes on Nicola’s lessons now. She’s doing a good job. Doesn’t take all my lessons though. I teach the majority of my year sevens and eights, a few of my year elevens and half of my tens.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it, love?” dot spoke, pulling a chair over to them.

“Hester wants me to tell you she knows how to hide a body, again,” Anadil spoke lightly, inspecting her black nails she’d painted with glossy nail polish, looking noticeable over her albino skin. “Although I don’t think you will need it. However, if you needed somebody to, say, open up a dead body with a scalpel I could-”

“I don’t need any of that, Anadil,” Agatha spoke, a small smile making its way to her lips, “but thank you for the, uh- kind gesture.”

“Anytime,” shrugged Anadil.

“More fudge, lovelies?” dot spoke, as she opened up a small plastic container of gorgeous chocolate fudge, “Agatha?”

“I’m alright, dot,” she spoke, sighing slightly as she popped one of the ones she had in her mouth.

“You alright?” dot spoke, frowning at her, almost in a worrying way, “you’ve not been yourself for the past few weeks.”

“Since parents evening, in fact,” Anadil noted before a blaring ringtone sounded and Anadil sighed before she unlocked her phone, “it’s Hester,” she explained, “I’ll be back.”

She walked away, as her emotionless face morphed to a small smile, speaking to Hester over the phone before she nodded, walking back over to the two teachers, her phone on speaker as she said, “You can speak now.”

“I’ll speak when I want to,” grumbled Hester over the phone.

“She’s just cranky,” dot guessed, “probably.”

“Is that dot? Did you just call me cranky- I swear-”

“Hester,” Anadil cut in.

“Right. sorry love,” Hester spoke, before she said, “Agatha’s here, right?”

“Yes, she is,” Anadil nodded, “go on. Say what you wanted to say-”

“Why are you so huffy all of a sudden?”

“No reason, go on-”

“Anadil love-”

“Call me love one more time and I’ll grab these school scissors and come back home just so I can stab your throat.”

Cackles were heard from the other side of the phone, and Hester’s voice spoke suddenly, “love you.”

“Shut up,” grumbled Anadil, but Agatha noticed a small dusting of pink on Anadil’s cheeks and grinned slightly.

“Right, Agatha,” Hester spoke, getting straight to the point, “remember what that idiot said?”

“Which idiot?”

“Tedros!” Hester screeched over the phone, “remember when you explained about his pathetic attempt at trying to push the blame away?”

“Yes, I remembered that,” nodded Agatha, silent wanting to add on the fact Hester had listed out a lot of words she wouldn’t have dared to say in front of any of her students, “and?”

“And turns out the dolt might be right!” Hester reported over the phone. There was a brief moment of Hester shuffling before Agatha heard her mumbled, “Jesus fuck, where is it- wait, here it is- right. A friend of mine’s a private investigator-”

“She means Ravan,” dot whispered.

“Shut up, dot-”

“Hester!”

“Right, sorry, ani,” Hester spoke, “no- you see I asked him to do a bit of digging. Perfectly within the law how dare you assume otherwise- but I was curious about the Sader woman. Seems dreadful really. I’d hate if she was teaching me-”

“As would I,” nodded Anadil, “probably would hide a dead cat under her seat.”

“Right, anyways,” Agatha spoke, glancing between the phone and Anadil, “what has a private investigator and Evelyn Sader got to do with my problem?”

“Honestly Agatha, for somebody so smart you’re so dense sometimes,” grumbled Hester before she took in a deep breath and said, “Evelyn is after your job. That, or she wants control over the school. You see, Ravan did some digging, as I’ve said. And basically, Evelyn used to go to this school.”

“She did?” Agatha spoke, slightly surprised.

“Yes, although before, it was named something else. Can’t be bothered to remember. It was an all-girls school or something in the early nineteen-hundreds. It was up until Eveylnn’s second year or something. The point is, that Evelyn’s been worming her way back in. trying to get control of the school again. She left two decades ago and came to the school board soon after. B-”

“So you’re saying she wants me fired for this? Not for the fact Sophie used to date both her children?”

“Oh I suppose that too,” Hester reasoned over the phone, “but this too. There’s no real evidence of Evelyn doing anything wrong. She covers her tracks well Agatha. I-”

“Agatha!” shouted Hort from the other side of the staffroom.

“Is that Hort?” Hester yelled, “Little bloody weasel-”

“One of your students wants to show you something! Says it’s urgent!”

“Can this wait-?”

“Please Miss!” called a familiar voice, “we found something important!”

“I’ll have to go,” Agatha spoke almost immediately, looking between the two teachers in front of her and her friend Hester on the phone, “speak with you lot later.”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Agatha did not expect three year tens to be holding stacks of paper each. And she did not expect Evangeline pendragon to drag her away, all the way to her empty English classroom. Usually, Agatha would’ve given her a detention for something like this, but with her two friends trailing behind Agatha, she wondered what was going on.

“Aun- I mean, miss woods,” Annaliese started, the three girls surrounding Agatha as she took a seat, “we uh-”

“We heard you three weeks ago at parents evening,” cut in the third girl, who Agatha recognised as Verena, a girl from her English class who’d surprisingly become close with the other two girls. She stood at average height, a sort of goldilocks region between the very tall Evangeline and the short Annaliese with hair past her shoulders that looked almost pure black and brown eyes. The Chinese girl (and Agatha knew she was after a long essay she did in year eight all about racism and the racism she was given as somebody who’s ethnic background was Chinese) tended to slip between squinting at the board in class and wearing grey framed circular glasses.

“And basically,” continued Verena, pushing a strand of black hair behind her ear, “heard about the reason you weren’t teaching us for a while.”

“Girls you shouldn’t be getting yourself involved with this,” frowned Agatha.

“Not our fault Evie’s dad is loud,” shrugged Verena, her usual spunk returning. With Verena, it was a bit of a hit and miss behaviour wise. Sometimes she was a star student, behaved well in class and never got in trouble. Whereas other days she’d be the one in the eye of the storm. The troublemaker who got detentions., “kept talking too loud. I overheard and basically-”

“Please don’t be mad at us miss woods!” Evangeline blurted out.

“Oh god here we go,” sighed Verena dramatically, “Evie she’ll be fine with it-”

“It was a dumb plan,” reasoned Annaliese.

“And I quote, you said ‘That’s dumb, let’s do it’. Nobody likes a hypocrite Lisa,” retorted Verena, crossing her arms towards Annaliese

“Well-”

“Can you girls stop squabbling like a bunch of primary school children and tell me what it is you’ve dragged me here to say?” snapped Agatha, getting irritated at the three of them arguing and teasing each other.

“We sort of overheard, well, Vera did about Evelyn Sader being like the reason behind this all. Sort of. And Annaliese heard from her mum, Ms Brooke- you know, Hester Brooke, that she’d hired some bloke and then Vera got that and we sort of hacked into my grandpa Arthur’s computer. Totally legal- please don’t arrest us-”

“She doesn’t have the power to do that you ninny,” snapped Annaliese, “she’s a teacher-”

“Shut up anna, anyways- we sort of screenshotted and printed some of the emails. And we- we have these for you. My dads have been a wreck at home-”

“Me and anna-”

“Anna and I, girls,” Agatha corrected as if it were second nature, “you might be explaining things but that’s no excuse for horrid grammar.”

“Right miss. Well, anna and i sort of expect he has a crush on you. and Evie almost screamed when we said this because she’d love you as a m- OW!”

Agatha’s mind went back to what Tedros had shouted before. But she shook it away as Evelyn continued, “moving onwards,” she looked to the two other girls before they slammed their stacks of paper onto the table beside Agatha, “we thought you’d want to give a read.”

“In all seriousness miss woods,” Verena piped up, her face morphing from joking to a sort of serious look, like she actually meant what she was saying, “what’s she’s done can easily get her fired. If you showed this to the council or something. I- I really have no clue how it works. But I don’t know- probably somebody who can do this-well, She could easily get fired.”

“Th-that’s true,” mumbled Agatha, taking the stacks of paper and placing it into her lap, “thank you, girls. For showing me this.”

“No problem miss woods,” chorus the three of them. As Annaliese and Verena walked away, Evangeline stayed back, looking at Agatha, “Miss Woods… you know, uh. If what, uh, vera and anna say is true- about my dad- uh… liking you? And if you… uh- liked him? I-I’d be cool with it. I guess.”

Agatha didn’t know what to do. So, she smiled.

  
  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


Agatha didn’t know where the sudden butterflies spawned from. But she ignored them completely. She had purposely went to Putsi Cafe on Saturday instead of Sunday (and it seemed to have been working perfectly fine since Tedros seemed dumb enough and didn’t seem to want to go on a different day). But her mind kept drifting towards everything that kept happening to her. First, Tedros yelling at her, the words “WHY DO YOU THINK I LIKE YOU SO MUCH?” kept repeating in her mind. Next, the words of Evangeline, repeated in her mind. 

Agatha groaned, mumbling to herself before her phone rang, the blaring singsong tone cutting through the silence of the Saturday morning. She huffed, seeing the words ‘Sophie’ on the contact name.

“Sophie?”

“Agatha!” responded Sophie, “I need you to come to the shop- right now!”

“Huh?” she grumbled.

“I need you for something Aggie. I need you for a- uh, document reading. I don’t understand half of the words darling-”   
  


“Sophie you literally took the English language as one of your majors-”

“Yes well I need you here right now Aggie!” protested Sophie, “please? Wear something nice too-”

“Uh, why?”

“Well I don’t want my sister coming into my gorgeous boutique in bloody tartan pyjamas again, do I?” Sophie spoke, and Agatha could almost imagine the disgusted look on her face and she felt a small smile form on her face.

“Alright, see you soon then.”

“Perfect!”

  
  
  
  


**⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟**

  
  
  


It only took Agatha a short amount of time before she finally made her way to Sophie’s boutique which she’d dutifully named ‘Woods and Beyond’. It was a simple name, and people might have scoffed at it. But Agatha knew the meaning behind it. They were, after all, sisters, and had the same last name. Woods. And the beyond was more of a joke between the two of them. When Agatha and Sophie were still in secondary school, Agatha had rudely called her ‘witch’ (sometimes ‘bitch’) ‘of the woods and beyond’ after Sophie had abandoned her at one point. But now, it was more of a teasing nickname Agatha used. And Sophie relished it, grinning brightly. She walked towards the shop and opened it, the inside a mix of cream tones and baby pink with a hot pink till.

“Aggie darling!” cried Sophie, strutting over to Agatha with a grin. She wore a gorgeous pink dress that would’ve been quite over the top had she not paired it with a white mesh top underneath. She grinned at Agatha before hugging her.

“Oh you look presentable!” complimented Sophie, grinning at her as she indicated to Agatha’s black plaid trousers and her simple white t-shirt with the words ‘a plague upon both your houses’ and a black bomber jacket over it.

“Thanks, I guess,” Agatha spoke, “where are those papers?”

“In the back darling,” Sophie spoke, rushing around the shop before she stopped, suddenly adding, “and if you see nic there, tell her I need to speak to her-”

“Nic?”

“Oh! Nicola? Didn’t I tell you about her aggie? She’d an English teacher. A trainee anyways. She originally was going to write a book? But she decided to be a teacher-”

“Hold on,” Agatha spoke, stopping herself before she went to the back of the shop, “like… Nicola Ababio?”   
  


“The exact one!” grinned Sophie, before she said in a small tone, a blush on her cheeks, “she’s quite attractive. Of course- in a roguish and rude way. A nuisance. But she seems intent on finding the perfect shirt or something. Sent her to the back to look at some of my other designs.”

Agatha raised a brow, storing that knowledge for later. She shrugged, walking towards the back of the shop, where she heard whispers.

“Shut up-”

“No you,” hissed the other voice.

“Awe babe-”

“I’m fucking third-wheeling and it sucks, please stop.”

“Shut up she’s coming!”

“I’ll shut up when I want to thank you very- mmph!”

“Don’t- I- oh my god I feel so single.”

Agatha turned the corner, and the hallway was empty. Although she swore she saw a flick of blonde hair, long and curly and a familiar-sounding giggle. Agatha kept walking though, turning to the door that read, ‘Sophie’s office!’ in a pink swirling font and Agatha recognised it, opening the door. And this is the part where Agatha heard cackles behind her and a loud thump. But the door had closed and she was confronted with a very familiar face. The same blonde hair looking like it was gold. The same gorgeous blue eyes (which for some reason made her feel light and fluttery. It was the same feeling she’d been feeling for the past few weeks). And the same tan skin.

Tedros pendragon. And for some reason, Agatha felt giddy.

“What are you doing here?” was the only thing she managed to say.

“I- uh,” he began, scratching the back of his neck as he shuffled his feet. He was dressed in a simple blue shirt and jeans with a fashionable black jacket and on Sophie’s desk were a bunch of sunflowers.

“I kind of bribed Sophie? To get you here?” Tedros began, “I mean- I- it sounds bad. But I just didn’t want you mad at me. I heard about the Sader thing. If it helps, I heard from my dad that’s she’s been kicked from the school board. Probably won’t be allowed a foot near you or any other school.”

“Guess that’s good,” she mumbled, laughing for no reason.

“Yeah…” Tedros mumbled before he continued, “and I- uh… look I just- I mean there is no document for you to sign. Nothing like that. I don’t really know how to say it, really. I’m dead nervous and feel like I’m about to melt into a fucking puddle. I just- it was weird how we met. You hated me because Eva was a little devil. And I didn’t like you because you were cold. And then, I don’t know- I got to know you? God this sounds so horrible-”

“Does this have anything to do with what you shouted at the park?”

“I- you remember that?” Tedros spoke, eyeing her carefully.

“Course I do,” she mumbled, adding to herself silently, it’s been driving me crazy.

“And, well uh- about that. I like you? This sounds-” he groaned slightly, snatching the bouquet of sunflowers, waving it around as he spoke, “I was supposed to have this big bloody speech planned. Really romantic. And I was supposed to profess the fact I like you. But it’s all too cheesy. Like some stupid rom-com Eva would watch. I-” he took a deep breath in, walking towards Agatha, “I like you. A lot. You’re pretty, funny and slap sense into me. I know I’m an arsehole sometimes, but you seem to balance it out. Agatha, I like you a lot. And, uh… ye-”

He didn’t really get to finish his sentence. Because her body had managed to move faster than even her brain could comprehend and she’d shoved her lips on his. Well, maybe that’s a weird way of saying it, but never the less, she kissed him. She heard flowers drop and two hands came to her face, kissing her fervently. His lips were the opposite of chapped and soft, and she ended up smiling as they kissed, not being able to hold it in. the butterflies and sort of tingly feeling she’d felt exploded and travelled around her. He was grinning too at this point, and she pulled back, her hands had made their way to his neck at some point during the kiss.

She was staring almost at eye level with him and was still grinning before Tedros pecked her lips again, an even larger grin on his face.

“D’you remember what else you said?” Agatha mumbled as he pecked her lips again.

“What?” he said.

“Something about… snogging who gets Evangeline to pass her GCSEs?” she laughed, “you’re a bit early, Tedros.”

“Never listened to rules anyway,” was his response as he went in for another kiss.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this piece of SHIT took three hours to fully edit (bar the fact i sometimes edited as i went) and holy- i- oh my god pls this took so long and this bunch of 20K pls.
> 
> for more (idk if u want uno) i have an insta (@pumpkingsandqueens) and a wattpad (@infantwomanro) and that's all really. also very much i love this au so yes there will be small other things for this.


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